Stephen Gardiner

Stephen Gardiner (1483-12 November 1555) was Bishop of Winchester from 1531 to 1555, Secretary of State of England from 1528 to 1531, and Lord Chancellor from 1553 to 1555.

Biography
Stephen Gardiner was born in Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, England in 1483, and he met Desiderius Erasmus in 1511 in Paris. He became a doctor of canon law before being made secretary to Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, and he acquired a knowledge of foreign politics in the service of Wolsey. In 1527, he and Thomas More arranged a treaty with the French for the support of an army in Italy against Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and he served as ambassador to France from 1535 to 1538. Gardiner was a conservative and opposed to Thomas Cromwell's reforms of the Church of England, and he became Chancellor of Cambridge University after the execution of Cromwell. He later tried to have Thomas Cranmer executed, but King Henry VIII himself intervened. Because of his opposition to reforms, he was imprisoned during the reign of King Edward VI of England, but Queen Mary I of England set him free upon her entry into London for her coronation in 1553. He returned to his bishopric, and he died in Westminster in 1555.